Renowned Russian media executive and political consultant Igor Malashenko is believed to have committed suicide in Spain, Russian state media cited a Spanish court as saying. Malashenko’s former colleagues and family said he had taken his own life at age 64 on Monday, but no official sources have yet confirmed the reports. “Everything shows” that…
Leonardo DiCaprio has joined Pamela Anderson this week in calling on Russia to release dozens of orcas and belugas held in a so-called “whale jail” in the country’s Far East. Novaya Gazeta reported in late 2018 that about 100 Orcas and Belugas are being held in small temporary enclosures in a bay near the city of…
A suspected Russian spy has been arrested in Stockholm, the Swedish Security Police said on Wednesday. The suspect, who was arrested late Tuesday, is believed to have been engaged in criminal activity since at least 2017, the Security Police said. They declined to provide either a name or a gender for the suspect. “It is a…
Russia and Syria issued a joint statement on Wednesday calling on U.S. forces to leave Syria and to allow people inside a refugee camp in the southeast of the country to be evacuated by Russian and Syrian forces. The statement, released by Russia’s Defense Ministry, said Russian and Syrian forces had prepared buses to relocate…
Russia saw a 10 percent surge in international tourist arrivals last year, dominated by visitors from China, Germany and South Korea, state media cited the authorities as saying. Russia has introduced visa-free travel for Chinese tour groups and hired Chinese-speaking staff at airports and train stations to accommodate growing tourist numbers from the country of…
At least eight people, including three children, have been killed in a house fire in the Siberian region of Kemerovo, one year after a deadly fire there claimed scores of lives and sparked mass safety inspections. Sixty people, many of them children, died in the Siberian city of Kemerovo in March 2018 after the Winter…
The U.S. military disrupted the internet access of a Russian troll farm accused of trying to influence American voters on Nov. 6, 2018, the day of the congressional elections, The Washington Post reported on Tuesday. The U.S. Cyber Command strike targeted the Internet Research Agency in the Russian port city of St. Petersburg, the Post…
The U.S. Army estimates the Russian army’s military capabilities will peak in 2028, closely followed by the Chinese around 2030, giving the United States almost a decade to prepare for those threats, a senior Pentagon official said in an interview on Monday. The top civilian at the U.S. Army, Secretary Mark Esper, said the Army…
A federal judge on Tuesday agreed to delay the sentencing of Maria Butina, who has admitted to working as a Russian agent to infiltrate a gun rights group and make inroads with U.S. conservative activists and Republicans, at the request of a prosecutor who cited her ongoing cooperation. Butina, 30, has been in custody since…
The head of a Russian vodka manufacturer has told The Moscow Times he was shocked to hear Dutch customs had intercepted a shipment of his goods on suspicion of it being bound for North Korea’s top brass. Early on Tuesday, the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad (AD) reported that customs officials in the Dutch port city…
A Russian court on Tuesday sentenced a former state security officer and a cybersecurity expert to long jail terms after finding the two men guilty of committing state treason in the interests of the United States. The two were arrested in December 2016 shortly after the United States accused Russia of trying to influence its…
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin will not intervene in the case of a prominent U.S. investor arrested over embezzlement accusations, the Kremlin said on Tuesday, playing down pressure to release him before trial. The detention of Michael Calvey, a founder of Baring Vostok Capital Partners, has rattled foreign investors in Moscow and is likely to further…
Ukraine’s national broadcaster has dropped the singer who was meant to represent the country at the Eurovision Song Contest due to apparent political differences over Russia. Anna Korsun, 27, who goes by the stage name Maruv, was selected by a public vote on Saturday to sing at the contest in Israel in May. But she…
A top Russian security official on Tuesday accused the United States of deploying forces in Puerto Rico and Colombia in preparation for a military intervention in Venezuela to topple Moscow’s ally, President Nicolas Maduro. Venezuela has been plunged into political turmoil and was rocked by violent clashes at the weekend. The United States and a…
Russia has established high-speed internet service on a chain of Pacific islands off its far eastern coast, state-run telecoms operator Rostelecom said on Tuesday, despite a decades-old dispute with Japan over the territory. Rostelecom said an 815-kilometer fibre optic cable line had been laid between Russia’s offshore Sakhalin island and the island chain to introduce…
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday said that his daughter interns at the European Parliament as a regular student, after several EU lawmakers expressed security concerns. Yelizaveta Peskova, 21, is listed as a trainee for French far-right EU parliamentarian Aymeric Chauprade, who had backed Russia’s 2014 annexation of the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine. Several of…
SARATOV — Olga Trunova has no secrets from her neighbor: they talk about everything. But there is one topic which is off-limits. Their faith. “She goes to the Orthodox Church,” Trunova, 77, said as she laid out homemade pies in her apartment, where paintings of a blond-haired, blue-eyed Jesus decorate the walls. “I told her…
Russia has been ranked the world’s 95th healthiest country in a new index released by Bloomberg, behind most other nations in Eastern Europe. Although alcohol consumption has sharply plummeted in recent years, obesity rates in Russia have been on the rise due to deteriorating eating habits and measles cases skyrocketed in the past year. Russia has…
A Russian tanker violated international trade sanctions by transferring fuel to a North Korean vessel at sea at least four times between October 2017 and May 2018, two crew members who witnessed the transfers said. Such transactions could have helped provide North Korea with an economic lifeline and eased the isolation of the secretive communist…
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) thwarted an Islamic State plot to bomb a train in central Moscow, a shopping mall in a Moscow suburb and the headquarters of the GRU military intelligence service, the Kommersant business daily reported Tuesday, citing sources close to the investigation. Tajik national Tojiddin Nazarov, who uses the nom de guerre…
The renowned Russian media executive and political consultant Igor Malashenko has died in Spain at the age of 64, the Kommersant business daily reported on Monday. Some Russian media reported the death as having been a suicide, citing sources close to Malashenko. No official sources have yet confirmed the reports. Malashenko was the co-founder and…
A former mixed-martial-arts fighter and Russian ultranationalist serving time for attacking a brothel was released from prison early on Monday. Vyacheslav Datsik, who fought under the nickname “Red-Haired Tarzan” and has a long criminal history, was sentenced in March 2018 to 3.5 years in maximum-security prison for unlawful intrusion, battery and disorderly conduct. He was…
Russian state television has listed U.S. military facilities that Moscow would target in the event of a nuclear strike, and said that a hypersonic missile Russia is developing would be able to hit them in less than five minutes. The targets included the Pentagon and the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland. The report, unusual even by…
Russian police have opened a criminal case into air pollution in the Siberian coal-mining region of Kemerovo, weeks after black snow first covered towns in the area. Dark snow descended on the cities of Prokopyevsk, Kiselyovsk and Leninsk-Kuznetsky in mid-February, a phenomenon that has been attributed to rising coal output. Authorities in another Kemerovo town were…
Russian President Vladimir Putin defended the decision to prosecute U.S. fund manager Michael Calvey on fraud charges in a case that’s shaken investors and drawn criticism from top Kremlin insiders. At a closed-door meeting last week, Putin was asked about attacks on the handling of the case and the damage it might do to the…
Moody’s Investors Service has for the first time named “abrupt regime change” as a risk factor for the Russian economy. Analysts have forecast increasing competition within the Kremlin and growing popular discontent over social issues as Vladimir Putin’s fourth presidential term approaches its end in 2024. Moody’s named regime change as one of several “distant…
Russia-based private equity group Baring Vostok appealed on Monday for President Vladimir Putin to take a criminal investigation into its U.S. founder Michael Calvey and other executives under his personal control. It made the request in an open letter to Putin posted on its website. There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin. Prosecutors last…
A majority of Russians view corruption cases against top officials as evidence of the government’s overall decay, according to a new independent survey. Levada carried out the survey in the wake of the high-profile detention of Russian senator Rauf Arashukov on murder, organized crime and witness tampering charges. His father, the high-ranking gas official Raul…
The United States asked Russia for advice before the U.S. and North Korean leaders meet in Vietnam later this week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Monday, Interfax news agency reported. Lavrov also said there was no quick solution to the Korean Peninsula issue, adding that the United Nations could have lifted some sanctions against North Korea…
Thousands gathered in central Moscow on Sunday to mark the fourth anniversary of slain opposition politician Boris Nemtsov’s murder. Nemtsov, aged 55 at the time, was gunned down on Feb. 27, 2015 while crossing a bridge close to the Kremlin. A vocal critic of President Vladimir Putin, he had been working on a report examining…
Russia’s Defense Ministry on Saturday kicked off a countrywide tour of war trophies from the Syrian civil war. They included vehicles, firearms and equipment that the Russian military collected in Syria since entering the conflict in 2015. The tour kicked off on Defender of the Fatherland Day, an annual celebration on Feb. 23 of Russia’s…
President Vladimir Putin has instructed the government to draw up a plan to support popular music months after young independent artists were pressured to cancel shows in Russian cities. A number of young Russian artists said the authorities had forced them to cancel concerts over allegations of offensive lyrics or extremism. After the brief arrest of…
A recent video showing Siberian shamans performing a sacrificial burning of camels “for the consolidation of Russia and its peoples” has outraged online users and drawn the prosecutors’ attention. Footage dated Feb. 1 showed shamans in the Irkutsk region dragging two-humped camels, lighting a bonfire and beating traditional tambourines in a circle. In the video,…
Russia’s lower chamber of parliament plans to install an online wall of shame displaying lawmakers’ dubious remarks to force them “to think before they speak,” its chairman has said. State Duma chairman Vyacheslav Volodin said on Thursday that false statements made during discussions will be published on the Duma website. “If you’ve done something stupid,…
Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Friday accused the United States and its NATO allies of discussing how to arm the opposition in Venezuela and alleged Washington was deploying special forces and equipment near the South American nation. Moscow cited unspecified information to back its assertion about the plans to arm the opposition, but did…
A Russian court on Friday ruled to extend by three months the detention of former U.S. marine Paul Whelan who is being held on suspicion of spying, the RIA news agency reported. Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in a Moscow hotel room on Dec. 28 and accused of espionage,…
The Russian Football Union (RFU) on Friday chose Alexander Dyukov, a senior oil executive, as its new president until 2023, Russian news agencies reported. Dyukov is the chief executive officer of oil producer Gazprom Neft. He succeeds Vitaly Mutko, a deputy prime minister and veteran sports official, who became embroiled in allegations around Russia’s doping…
The size of Russia’s shadow economy was equal to 20 percent of the GDP last year, media reported Friday, citing the Rosfinmonitoring state financial watchdog. The watchdog recorded 20.7 trillion rubles ($315.9 billion) in undeclared imports and income taxes, as well as under-the-table salaries and other suspicious transactions, in 2018, the RBC news website reported.…
It was a stark departure from past policy objectives. Addressing a crowd of government officials on Wednesday, President Vladimir Putin delivered a state of the nation speech more inward-focused than ever before. Domestic issues — the economy above all — took precedence; Ukraine didn’t even receive a mention. Outlining a litany of measures to help…
Russian activists have slammed the recent detentions and alleged torture of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Western Siberia, comparing them to persecution by the Nazis. A spokesperson for the Jehovah’s Witnesses, an organization that Russia labeled extremist in 2017, alleged that at least seven adherents of the religious group had been brutally tortured after being detained last week in the…
This week on From Russia With News, Financial Times Bureau Chief Henry Foy joins us in the studio to talk about the arrest of Michael Calvey, the U.S. founder of Baring Vostok, Russia’s biggest independent private equity firm. We’ll also talk with Coda journalist Simon Ostrovsky to discuss the new Duma law that bans Russian…
In the cold, gray waters of the Gulf of Finland, 30 kilometers west of St. Petersburg, a giant wall juts across the bay. Completed seven years ago, it protects the city from an age-old danger: floods. When storms approach from the west, the Baltic Sea is pushed eastwards into the shallow Neva Bay where the…
A military course for schoolchildren taught youngsters how to disperse street protests in Russia’s fourth largest city of Yekaterinburg, local media reported. Researchers registered at least 1,000 more protests in 2018 than in previous years as Russians took to the streets over pension age hikes, rising gas prices and other issues. Activists face a range…
President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is militarily ready for a Cuban Missile-style crisis if the United States is foolish enough to want one and that his country currently has the edge when it comes to a first nuclear strike. The Cuban Missile Crisis erupted in 1962 when Moscow responded to a U.S. missile…
Twitter Inc. this month made a significant revision to its public database of more than 3,000 accounts that it has linked to Russia’s Internet Research Agency, fundamentally altering the record about the group’s trolling efforts in the U.S. in the year following the contentious 2016 presidential election. Twitter’s changes invalidate central portions of a Bloomberg…
It’s no longer lonely at the top for Yelena Baturina, Russia’s richest woman and the wife of former Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov. Forbes Russia said Tatiana Bakalchuk, the co-founder and owner of popular private online retailer Wildberries, joined its women billionaires list on Thursday. The business magazine now estimates Bakalchuk’s net worth at more than…
President Vladimir Putin calls improving the Russian navy’s combat capabilities a priority. The unfinished husks of three guided-missile frigates that have languished for three years at a Baltic shipyard show that is easier said than done. Earmarked for Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, the frigates fell victim to sanctions imposed by Ukraine in 2014 after Russia…
Russia must prepare for possible Western attempts to deny it access to the global internet by creating its own self-sufficient ‘segments’ of the web, President Vladimir Putin was quoted as saying on Wednesday by Russian news agencies. “I think, they [foreign countries] will think through carefully before doing it, but there is a theoretical possibility…
Russia’s Defense Ministry released footage of what it said was a successful test launch of its new submarine drone missile system, hours after President Vladimir Putin said there had been major advancements in the system. Putin announced the development of a series of new advanced weapons ahead of his re-election in March 2018. Of those,…
Russian military police and Syrian troops have blockaded food and goods supply routes to the Rukban refugee camp in Syria in a bid to force thousands of desperate residents to leave the U.S.-protected area near a Pentagon-run base, camp residents and rebels said on Wednesday. Russia’s defense ministry announced on Tuesday it was opening two…
U.S. citizen Michael Calvey, the founder of major private equity fund Baring Vostok in Russia, was detained on Feb. 14 on suspicion of defrauding Vostochny bank shareholders. On Saturday, a Moscow court placed him under arrest on fraud charges until April 13. The arrest has sparked an outcry among Western businessmen, political officials and members…
Venezuela on Wednesday received a shipment of humanitarian aid sent from Russia, including medicine and medical equipment, the state-run RIA Novosti news agency reported, citing a Russian diplomatic source. Russia has sided with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in his stand-off with opposition leader Juan Guaido, who declared himself interim president late last month. Maduro retains…
A majority of Russians say that doing business in the country without breaking a few rules is impossible, according to a newly released state-funded survey. The poll was carried out a day after Michael Calvey, a U.S. citizen and one of the biggest private equity investors in Russia, was detained on suspicion of embezzling $37.7…
Russia will respond to any U.S. deployment of short or intermediate-range nuclear weapons in Europe by targeting not only the countries where they are stationed, but the United States itself, President Vladimir Putin said on Wednesday. In his toughest remarks yet on a potential new arms race, Putin said Russia was not seeking confrontation and would not take…
Against a backdrop of falling approval ratings and a faltering economy, Russian President Vladimir Putin began his annual address to the Federal Assembly on Wednesday with an emphasis on domestic issues. Speaking at Gostiny Dvor to 2,000 senior government officials, he focused on questions of internal economic and social development, before discussing Russia’s new missile…
A spokesman for the Jehovah’s Witnesses has said that Russian investigators have brutally tortured adherents of the group who are currently held in detention. Russia’s Supreme Court declared the Jehovah’s Witnesses an extremist organization in 2017, leading to mass raids and causing hundreds of its estimated 175,000 members to flee the country. Earlier this month,…
Residents of a central Russian town plagued by air pollution are beginning to sue over health complications that they say are caused by toxic emissions from a nearby copper mine, local authorities have said. The town of Sibai has been hit by thick smog since November, sparking protests and leading to the distribution of medical…
Russia’s FSB security service has asked a Moscow court to extend the detention of former U.S. marine Paul Whelan who is being held on suspicion of spying, the Interfax news agency cited a court spokeswoman as saying on Wednesday. Whelan, who holds U.S., British, Canadian and Irish passports, was detained in a Moscow hotel room…
Russia‘s largest oil company could take over and renovate a ruined palace once used by the tsars, under draft legislation provisionally backed on Tuesday by lawmakers. The bill, approved by lawmakers in its first of three readings, seeks to save thousands of dilapidated listed buildings by creating a mechanism for investors to take them over…
Animal rights activists have staged a picket in Moscow demanding the release of more than 100 orcas and belugas held in so-called “whale jails” in Far East Russia. Activists have raised the alarm about the mistreatment of 11 killer whales and 90 belugas that they say are kept in cold and cramped pens in Srednyaya…